A booming, viral startup doesn't just happen overnight. It requires strategic, clear, and effective marketing to make sure all the hours and months you've put into creating your product are paid off. If you're looking for some low cost, high impact marketing tactics to build your brand, keep reading for some tested techniques to get you the exposure you deserve. And we know you deserve it!
Create Versatile Content
Smart startup marketing isn't just about creating content –– it's about hacking what you create to make the most of every piece. One shoot or project can be molded into days (or even weeks) of content with the right amount of tweaking.
Here's how:
Create a simple anthem video that is an engaging landing page background, that can also be used across all social media platforms (and even as stills or GIFS for future content).
In the video above, Purple Mattress explain their products in a fun, eye-catching way that can be repurposed for smaller pieces of content.
LivePerson told a common tale of travel woes in this spot that simultaneously highlighted their product (the customer care backend) while offering many moments easily captured for secondary content. What great production company brought this vision to life? Hint: it was us!
Nailing Your Brand (While Knowing Your Audience)
In today’s day and age, branding is everything. Especially with millennial marketing trends, it’s all about selling not just your product, but your lifestyle. Knowing your brand vision is crucial from the very beginning to start building a loyal audience.
Here's how:
A great way to do this is taking a look at the branding tactics of your competitors, by seeing where they’re doing things right or wrong. Keep your logo and slogan simple, but also memorable, and think about the longevity of your branding techniques.
Leverage Social Media with Collaborations
Plenty of brands have been able to build a huge following from collaborating with influential and relevant content creators on platforms like Instagram and Youtube. Working with influencers to promote your products through sponsored mentions or giveaways allows you to ensure you’re targeting the right audience.
Here's how:
Identify relevant influencers in your product space (hint: it's not always a Kardashian). You can easily reach out to influencers through their messages or emails and offer product or cash in exchange for a simple mention of your product on their platform. Building this relationship with an influencer can be beneficial to both parties. But more importantly, you can utilize information from your partnered marketing campaigns to better understand the personalities and needs of your customers.
Almay has tapped Rashida Jones to speak to her fans directly through Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube to help sell their products to an audience that's already interested in what she (their influencer) is using.
Encourage Customer Reviews
The best way to build a loyal customer base is through word-of-mouth (sometimes referred to as word-of-mouth marketing, WOM or even WOMM). A satisfied customer review is often times more effective than fancy ad campaigns.
Here's how:
People will trust your brand when they hear about it through close friends and family, or even reviews they find on Yelp that are written by an actual, thinking human being. Spending time to ensure your loyal customers are happy so that they'll preach your brand not only makes you look better, but builds customer loyalty as well.
Bonus Round
Check out this Dollar Shave Club video as re-imagined for a Retention Science testimonial:
Both companies benefitted from the mutual use of good video. This testimonial is a great way to show how well you collaborate with others in both the B2B and B2C realms, with a little bit of humor to boot.
Whether you are a start-up or well established business, there are a ton of opportunities for proven strategy to grow your business.